


Smiles

by BaronessEmma



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Character studies, Drabble Collection, Gen, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3561779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaronessEmma/pseuds/BaronessEmma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scientists have classified many different types of smiles, but everyone has their own way of doing it. . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smiles

**Sarek**

Those who know him, know.

He has never smiled, truly, in his life.

Not one single, natural, empathic response has he ever expressed by the delicate tightening of facial muscles to bend the lips into a curve. Never once has an emotion slipped past his control so that his teeth have been shown in the subtle framing of his mouth, nor have his nostrils flared or cheeks contracted to make what humans would simply call a "happy" face.

Never.

Not once.

But everyone, even those who do not know him, have _seen_ him smile. Often. In company. At work. He wears a smile like most men wear a tunic. It is flat, formal, well crafted, and apparently normal, but nothing about it even goes as deep as the skin. He puts it on as a uniform, but there is no light in it, and it does not reach his eyes.

A delicate contracting of facial muscles that allow him to project a scene he must maintain, a calculated expression of cultural acceptance, an Ambassador's tool.

That is all these smiles are.

But those who know him see past the sculpted perfection of his control, and know that there is more truth in these smiles than anyone can fully see. The emotions that _could_ produce a genuine smile are not absent - they never have been. And when he gives his false show of happiness, something about his posture does bespeak of truth. He _is_ happy. . . but this is not how he would wish to show it.

He _cannot_ smile, truly, he cannot. He is Vulcan, and they _do not_. It is not their way.

But, it is expression, and he needs it.

He smiles with his mouth.

And it is good.

* * *

**Spock**

People say he cannot smile.

He would agree with them.

He cannot and does not use his lips in that fashion. A twitch is all. A quirk. These are not smiles. Everyone agrees that they are mere remnants of some forced expression, or shreds of humanity long forgotten.

But they will never know how many long hours of meditation and how many years of rigorous practice have allowed him to suppress the instinct he inherited from his mother - the instinct to express emotion in exactly that way. They will never know the duality of his desires on the matter - how much he wishes he _could_ , and very much he knows he _shouldn't_. They will never see that love and despair have merged in him so completely that now he does not even know if a smile would break him or make him immortal. It would have to be one or the other, and he does not know which. They will never see that ambiguity.

They will _never_ know.

He has promised himself this.

He does not know or understand, that, in fact, it does not matter.

He smiles anyway.

Not so that most people can see it, of course, but then, so few are looking. Most are intimidated by him or so completely alienated by him that they never have the heart to see what is so plainly there - _shining_ from him, at times. If ever once someone _would_ catch on when he gives forth his unadulterated joy, it is certain that worlds would begin to sing.

It is unconscious, or it would not be so powerful.

But, it is expression, and he needs it.

He smiles with his eyes.

And it is good.

* * *

**McCoy**

He doesn't want to smile.

Oh, he can, of course. . . but usually when he tries to make his face form what most people would make into a happy thing, all he shows is a snarl. Red human skin stretched over white human teeth. Sometimes twisted, sometimes hostile. A bitter, deformed, sarcastic thing - more suited to an animal of prey than a warm, soft-hearted man.

Sometimes he tries to use his voice instead, and there he often succeeds. A tone of voice _can_ be gentle or joyous, even when the facial expression to go with it has become weathered and worn by countless internal contradictions.

He has everything he needs to be happy. . . but he isn't.

And it is not because he isn't capable of it, either.

He's just happy being miserable.

And they all will just have to live with that.

Yet. . . he never tries to impose - he never forces his bittersweet way on anyone.

But, he has only little concept of how much he really does enforce his own ideals on everyone around him. How the very nature of his job means that the most intimate facts about everything and everyone are constantly on his mind, and he does not see how his respect of that intimacy is projected all around him.

Others see only a man. A doctor. A gruff person, skilled, but unapproachable.

But when he touches them. . .

He has no understanding of what a touch can mean to someone. He is no touch-telepath, he has no extraordinary nervous array, he doesn't understand that the push and pull, the tug and ripple of skin and sinew and muscle and veins can communicate something to the patient that he never meant to say.

It is only in this manner that he can express what he is. . . not merely what he isn't.

But, it is expression, and he needs it.

He smiles with his hands.

And it is good.

* * *

**Uhura**

She smiles all the time, in infinite variety.

It is only another language.

She is perhaps unaware of it, but she speaks this unspoken language as exceptionally well as she speaks any other. With vibrancy, with forcefulness, with utter embracing of the form and function of the medium. She could tell you with a smile that you are a sweet, understanding, worthy person, and she wants to be your friend, and yet with the smallest change she could say, just as clearly, that you are a stupid, selfish, uninteresting mongrel, and buzz off please. She could, and has, said all of these things using just a smile.

Oh, she uses the words anyway.

But she doesn't need to.

What she does not truly understand is the beauty this bestows on her. The truly wonderful, mortal beauty of _communication_.

When she speaks, you know where you are with her. It is her greatest asset.

It is not honesty, it is more than that. It is understanding.

She is not aware how rare this makes her.

She speaks with her smiles because that is who she is. Her self expression is a celebration of her humanity - not because she is proud, or arrogant, or selfish, or even very aggressive, but because she is _human_ , and that is all she wants to be. The one thing she knows is that acceptance of self often makes it easier to accept others, to understand them.

And that is the first step in communication.

She knows that to be open is to be bigger than everyone else, to be transparent is to be safer than everyone else, to be silent is to be more giving than anyone else.

Her smiles are silent.

But, they are expression, and she needs them.

She smiles with her heart.

And it is good.

* * *

**Kirk**

He thinks more about it than he should.

Smiling, that is. . .

What could he show, what would he reveal, how could he influence the situation with a smile or two? There is a lot of use to be had from a smile, he knows, and not just for picking up girls or winning at poker.

People react to smiles. Sometimes their faces light up, sometimes they blush. Sometimes their eyes soften, and sometimes he sees walls go up. He is intrigued by the fact that if you let someone else _think_ they are getting a read on you, most of the time _you_ can get a read on _them_.

He practices in the mirror.

He isn't sure when controlling others became preferable to controlling himself, but he does know that the irony of the situation is that he must _still_ control himself. An uncontrolled person can't control anyone.

But he'll keep it together.

He has no choice.

He was _born_ for this. . .

He's not sure that he has ever seen a genuine smile. Something totally and truly spontaneous. But he does know that in his quest for spontaneity, he has somehow lost some ability for happiness. It doesn't hurt. It just _isn't_.

Maybe that's _all_ he is. Spontaneous.

Funny how everything runs amok when everything is controlled. His genius mind ponders the irony of it all. For a second or two.

Next drink, next girl, next poker game, next mission.

He smiles at the thought.

It is expression, and he needs it.

He smiles with his mind.

And it is good.

* * *

**Spock Prime**

Now, he is the emotional one.

The one who can live with himself if he makes an error, the one who can fray around the edges of his control and still keep the dignity of his years and of his race.

He has never been this person before.

Of all the things he expected, it was manifestly not this trip to Never-never Land, where he would meet the Lost Boy in him that never grew up. He never made any provision for having two lives to live, or having two futures to think about.

And two pasts.

The old adage "You can't change the past," is a meaningless bunch of words now.

Oddly, _he_ is even more a singularity than he was before.

Long ago he faced his feelings. Long ago he quantified his fears and longings and his sorrows and his joys. He forgot about them so completely that he actually became comfortable with them.

Not that he would admit this to anyone.

Except maybe. . . himself. . .

It was more unexpected than having a clone. A clone, at least, is a physically different being that comes into _your_ time.

Here they were, the same being, and _he_ was the one who had changed his time.

He shook off the oddity and retreated into the world of his own mind, as that was the only familiar place anymore. And he wondered. . .

Would this new universe be ready for him? Them?

An emotional Vulcan.

 _Two_ of them.

He vowed to himself to speak as little as possible to anyone, not wishing to betray anything about himself or about the young other self that was not him.

But there would be more to this silence than that, of course. . .

. . . Because now he knew the power of his voice.

If he could convince _himself_ to act in an illogical manner, then what might he be capable of in this universe? The smallest phrase, the simplest words, he knew now that they were filled with what he had always denied, and always fought against.

It was. . . oh. . . so much more than dignity.

But. . . it was expression. . . and he needed it.

Oh, _how_ he needed it.

He smiled with his soul.

And it was good.

* * *

**Amanda Grayson**

Somewhere, beyond all expression, she sits, smiling.

Because it is good.

It is all good.

And all creation is there, smiling back at her.


End file.
